Wednesday, August 16, 2006

o Hezbollah fired 3,790 rockets into Israel.o 901 of those rockets landed in communities.o 42 civilians were killed as a result of those rockets.

o 4,262 civilians were treated in hospitals for injurieso 33 these were seriously wounded,o 68 of them were moderately woundedo 1,388 were lightly wounded.o Another 2,773 civilians were treated for shock and anxiety.

YNet News compares the CNN coverage of casualties in Israel and Lebanon and notes a:

Highly unbalanced report mostly ignores plight of Israeli civilians, portrays Israelis as soldiers and politicians in suits, while coverage from Lebanon features in-depth interviews with Lebanese civilians and images of children and ruins; no mention of large number of Israelis displaced from their homes in north

In a separate report on the media in general, YNet notes that media bias, so evident during the war, continued after the war as well. In this CNN is consistent:

As a tentative ceasefire appeared to take hold, CNN reported on the "thousands of refugees (who) poured back into southern Lebanon, trying to return home." There was, however, no coverage given in the report to the thousands of displaced Israelis in central and southern Israel, who are waiting to go back to their own homes in northern Israel, some of which have been destroyed.

AP actually did cover northern Israel and Haifa; BBC continued to produce one-sided reporting, going so far as to prominently feature anti-war protests in Israel on their website while ignoring Lebanese dissent against Hezbollah.

Other examples of CNN's bias:

During its television coverage of the war in Lebanon on Sunday, CNN chose the word "resistance" to describe Hizbullah's actions in Lebanon – a term used by Hizbullah - as well as Hamas, and Iraqi jihadis - to describe their own attacks. 'Resistance' is however a value laden term, which implicitly argues that armed jihad organizations are 'resisting' and defending against aggression, rather than initiating it.

CNN also twice described Israeli leaflets dropped over Lebanon as "propaganda." While it has done the same with American army leaflets dropped in Iraq and Afghanistan, CNN appears to shy away from describing leaflets issued by jihadi and terror organizations as "propaganda," using instead terms like "urge" and "called on" to describe leaflets issued by Hamas in Gaza or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

IsraelVoices.com was established in the midst of the 2006 summer war that erupted between Israel and Hizballah terrorists, operating with close guidance and support from Iran and Syria. In its first month, the violence claimed over a thousand lives on both sides of Israel’s northern border and deliberately brought thousands of deadly missiles directly into Israeli civilian neighborhoods. While Israelis endured the pain of war as they stood up united against terror, they were shocked by the horror of seeing their nation vilified in the world press day-after-day, night-after-night by reporters, photographers and editors who allowed themselves – wittingly or not – to be directed, misled and callously used by terrorists to misinform global audiences about Israel’s fight for security, freedom and survival.

Their actions are not without consequence. Across the globe, no less than hundreds of millions of people follow the story of modern Israel with great interest and intensity. Many are inspired by religious passions, yearning for the peace of Jerusalem that is central to three main world religions. Many more recognize that as goes Israel, so goes the fate of the free world. Even a cursory glance of a regional map shows a sliver of land surrounded by boundless territories ruled by dictators, monarchs, sheiks, and fanatics for whom the basic values of western society are the very antithesis of their vision for their own nations, peoples and the world. In the battle for the future of the free world, typical Israelis find themselves on the front lines.

These are their stories, in their own words, of their own search for relatively normal lives in a dangerous, hostile region of the world; opportunities for love and work; leisure and liberty; a chance to dream, build, risk and sacrifice; the freedom to live their lives and contribute to a better world.

About Me

When I am not blogging at Daled Amos, I am sharing articles and the great posts of others on my account on Google Plus.

I write about the Middle East in general and about Israel in particular -- especially about issues affecting Israel in the Middle East and how Israel is impacted by policy in the current Obama administration.